KIWI

Thoughts on becoming our parents...

This is a picture of my mom going fishing with my son when he was about 3 years old. I love the way he's looking up at her and participating in what I'm sure was a very important conversation about the wonders of nature.

Some of my favorite quotes:

• My life is my message. - Mahatma Ghandi
• Your children will become what you are; so be what you want them to be. - David Bly
• The secret to happiness is not in doing what one likes to do, but in liking what one has to do. - Anonymous
• A friend is one who knows us, but loves us anyway. - Fr. Jerome Cummings
• Work is love made visible.- Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
  

I've been thinking about the BLUE one a lot lately since I'm starting to hear my own words come out of my 6 year old's mouth. Here are some examples:

Kira went into Will's room the other day. William's room is supposed to be "off limits" because of all the little lego pieces that she could choke on. She seems to find her way over to his room anytime his door is left open. He'll usually let her stay as he enjoys her company until she breaks something. After that scenario played out one morning last week, I heard him say to her, "Kira, you MAY NOT be in here. Kira, that is UNACCEPTABLE."

Today he said, "Mom watch" then he took his gum out of his mouth with a kleenex and threw the kleenex wrapped gum into the garbage and continued, "wasn't that APPROPRIATE of me?"

I was on the computer making a playlist for my blog (see the lovely new feature at the bottom of this page) and I spent a little too long working on it. William was sure to come over and let me know that I was having "TOO MUCH SCREENTIME".

We're always working on manners and being polite. Will was in the living room with Kira and I overhead him say, "Yay Kira! You finally got in the right way...but EXCUSE ME Kira, I'm SORRY I have to take it away."

We're constantly working on coping skills and I'm always reminding him to take a deep breath to calm himself down when he gets upset. He was tying his shoelace and got frustrated and walked away saying, "Uh, my brain just forgets how to do it!" I said, "Yeah, sometimes we just need to take breaks." He TAKES A BREATH and says, "Yeah, and then when I calm down my brain will remember how to do it."

When I'm talking passionately about something, my husband says, "Ok Carolyn" (because I sound like my mom.)

Speaking of mom - she always taught us to stand up for what we believe and to speak our mind. She taught us the value of education and how to research something for ourselves so we can formulate our own opinion on the matter. She taught us to say what needs to be said even if our voice shakes. She instilled in us the importance of using non-violent communication. She doesn't make small talk. All conversations are substantial. We are responsible for our own reactions to a situation. Synergy is important in relationships. Divorce is best handled through Collaborative Law. Wisdom is important. She taught us these things by her actions and her words and by simply living life and being herself. I am thankful for that.

Your children will become what you are; so be what you want them to be. - David Bly

New growth!

I was just telling someone at work today about how I thought I killed my cucumber plant only to come home and find a new cucumber growing! I have no idea where this new cucumber came from. I just recently checked on the plant and declared it dead. Amazing! I'm not a true gardener since I don't like all the work involved with weeding and clearing a special area and placing so many seeds so many inches apart and so many inches deep. Not my style. I just usually dig a hole in the middle of the grass in the backyard somewhere and lovingly sprinkle in a few seeds and water the general area every now and then. Something ALWAYS grows! Gotta LOVE nature!

I think it is extremely important for my children to participate in this process and William actually eats the food we grow! We don't put up any fences to keep the animals away and are more than happy to share our veggies with the neighborhood critters. There might be a new bunny making a home in this year's tomato plant. I deleted the posts about last year's bunny so I'll snap some photos of this little one if he decides to make a home in our yard like the other rabbit did.

Something about this whole line of thought reminds me of the Packets of Light poem by StoryPeople. "These are little packets of light and you need to plant them early in the year and remember to mark where they were because lots of times they look like weeds in the beginning and it's not until later that you see how beautiful they really are." - Brian Andreas

Yoga Posts

My boy knows yoga! Who knew?! I love that! We were talking at bedtime and he started telling me about these yoga "posts" that he learned at Rec Plus. He taught them to me and asked me if yoga was around when I was I kid. We were doing yoga on the bed and then we moved to the floor so we could balance better. It brings me such pleasure to know that my 6 year old is doing yoga when I'm off at work. I can't even tell you how peaceful this makes me. It's just such a nice surprise!

He kept calling them yoga "posts" though. We're not big on correcting speech around here. I find it absolutely adoreable that he doesn't always know the correct words and I've never felt the need to correct him. But now I have a 6 year old who talks like a baby and is in speech therapy. Some of the other kids used to make fun of him and I know kids can get meaner as they get older so I'm not sure what first grade will bring. This sounded more like a listening issue and not a physically can't say the word speech issue so somewhere in the middle of doing the "turtle post" and the "dog post" and the "flamingo post" I whispered to him that the word was not "post - p.o.s.t" but that it was "pose - p.o.s.e". He said "oh" and Jeff added that he should just think "nose...pose". It worked for a bit and then he went back to calling them posts. We left it at that because teaching your mom yoga posts after bedtime is just so much more interesting than saying the word correctly...and learning yoga posts from your child in his pajamas is way more fun than correcting speech.

We tried bike riding without training wheels today. We took turns running behind or along the side of him helping him to balance. It was exhausting! I don't know how kids learn to ride bikes. I'm thinking we're going to need lots and lots and lots of practice. I'm thinking there is going to be blood and tears involved. I might just have to let Jeff handle it.

We got rid of Kira's high chair last week and got her a booster that attaches to our kitchen chair and has a little tray on the front just like a high chair. It sort of transforms as she grows. I never knew these things existed! I love it! She's also fully strapped in now so there is no more standing up and turning around and rocking the back of the highchair. She's stuck tight nice and safe in this thing. Love it!

Jeff and I celebrated our anniversary this weekend. We've been together for almost 14 years and married for 7 of them. I totally think we should get credit for the entire 13+ years. We went to Cafe 28 and then listened to Michael Monroe at Lake Harriet until it started to rain and they had to stop the show. It was a nice night. We may have to make it a tradition.